Analog HD Recording Plugin To Record 16:9 Widescreen

[BTJustice]

I recently upgraded from SD Dish Network to HD Directv which is MUCH BETTER! Anyway, I get 16:9 widescreen broadcasts.

All of my recordings are 720X480. I want GBPVR to record and save in a widescreen ratio. I assume this is accomplished by the "Analog HD Recording Plugin".

When I go to that to set it, the only option I have is "Hauppauge WinTV HD-PVR". Selecting this never works with my TV card which is a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800.

What do I need to do to record in widescreen? I don't want to hit F7 to fake it.

[johnsonx42]

As far as I know you can't with a regular tuner card. Your DirecTV receiver outputs a 4:3 signal to the composite and/or SVideo connections, which is what you have connected to the HVR-1800. The HVR-1800 records what it gets from the box. There is a method defined for SVideo to carry a 16:9 signal, but I don't think it's ever been implemented in any hardware, at least not here.

The Analog HD Recording Plugin is strictly for the WinTV HD-PVR, which is a device that takes the HD Component output from your DirecTV tuner and encodes it to MPEG-4. That device is the only way to get HD from a set top box to GB-PVR.

[BTJustice]

I have my DIRECTV HD STB hooked directly to my TV tuner card using SVIDEO and RCA audio cables. The DIRECTV HD STBs have a setting to enable either 4:3 or 16:9 which I set to 16:9. I must admit, the way GBPVR is set now, I can stretch (FILL) my recordings and they look good, but I would like to record in a native 16:9 resolution.

[johnsonx42]

All DirecTV STB's have a setting for 4:3 or 16:9, even the way old RCA boxes from the early 90's. I have no idea what it does; it never seemed to do anything for me, but I never had a 16:9 TV. Either way, to my knowledge the HD PVR is your only way to record native 16:9.

Actually, I take that back, I did have my DirecTV box hooked to a 16:9 HDTV for awhile; the 16:9 setting still did nothing.

[BTJustice]

I don't recall having that setting on my SD STB. I see screen changes after selecting either 4:3 or 16:9 and then hitting the FORMAT button on the remote on my regular TV (not on GBPVR).

[sub]

The encoder on your HVR-1800 always marks analog recordings as being 4:3. There isnt anything GBPVR can do about this.

Just so you know though - your set top box is always outputting 720x480 for analog, regardless of whether the set top box is set to 16:9 or 4:3, so you're already capturing the full resolution available to your HVR-1800. The only difference is the MPEG2 header that specifies the aspect ratio that should be used for display.

There are some command line utilities that will update the aspect ratio header (like http://www.videohelp.com/tools/DVDPatcher), and if you found one that could be run from a command line, that you can probably run it from PostRecording.bat.

The Analog HD Recording plugin is for a different type of device, that captures highdef analog over component video or HDMI.

[BTJustice]

I am a little confused.

http://hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hvr1800.html

"Watch and record all ATSC formats, including the highest definition 1080i format"

To me, that means it should support 720 and 1080 I and P right?

[sub]

"ATSC formats" ie, digital 1080i/720p.

Analog is always standard definition.

[b00sfuk]

Not certain I fully understand the problem but can you not use the feature (=bug) in GB-PVR that means if you set the video decoder to "system default" then it defaults to "fill" so all recordings are shown widescreen on a 16:9 screen?
This is what I do for SD analog recordings which default to 4:3. Though this does not work in NPVR and I was just about to post a new topic to see if there were ways round this (e.g. the patcher that Sub mentions).

[mvallevand]

I remember a similar thread with dvasco here http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...video-file and when I finally "got" it I realized was possible to store a full 16:9 broadcast in the full SD recording (rather than using 4:3) with bars and I have configured the NMT to stretch/zoom it back to 16:9 without black bars. There are significantly more pixels to work with so it does look better than cropping the centre-cut.

Martin